Short review: "Again, but Better" should be written again...but better. ( )

See the full review and more at baileysbooks.home.blog!

Recommended: no
Not recommended because this book promised big things and didn't deliver. Stay away if you like romance, likable characters, or critical plot points that aren't so gaping with holes they look like Swiss cheese.

Thoughts:
The more I thought about this book, the less I liked it. The first issue is that I didn't particularly like either of our main characters. The side characters interested me more, but as non-MC people we don't get much about them. In fact, we get startlingly little about them. How did no one ask "Why is your name Babe?" when they were discussing how weird literally everyone else's name was? -_-

There wasn't much romance, in my opinion. It hinged on their nostalgia and reminiscing to make things happen, and even that was painful to get through because they were both still very stubborn and whiny.

The ending is deeply unsatisfying to me because there are so many technical questions that are left unaddressed. I tried really hard to let that go and take everything with a large dose of salt, but ultimately the issues that would have occurred were way too big for me to ignore. The name of the book is perfectly clever though, I do appreciate that. However, despite the metaphors for starting over and learning from your mistakes, the story itself has some serious issues.

In short, for a romance book the romance was weak, and the unexpected technical aspects of it were too haphazard (and also completely out of left field) for me to enjoy that either. I am once again seriously questioning the Goodreads Choice Awards. ( )

This was incredibly disappointing.

My main issue with this was the fact that the narrator is supposed to be 20 (and 26 later on) but talks and acts like she is in middle school. She seemed so immature to be premed and to have finished medical school in the second part.

There are a ton of other reviews that have discussed some of the huge problems with this book so I won’t go super in detail but I didn’t enjoy this much at all. ( )

2.5 Stars

I really struggled through the first half of this book. Shane's awkward and bumbling personality was quite annoying. Then she grows up and gets her second chance. The transformation is remarkable and one that I loved. She was still essentially the same but without the excessively giddy and self doubting inner monologue that wore me down in the first half. I understand that the whole point was that the second half of the book was a chance at redemption so we needed to see a real contrast in how she handled herself the second time around, however, the first half dragged on to the point where it became torturous. I look forward to reading more from this author as the witty dialogue and humour in the second half was the highlight of the book for me. ( )

I struggled with what the rating would be for this book at first. I really loved Pilot's character in the book. He is what redeemed the book for me in a lot of ways. I loved Shane's character near the end where she decided she would pick herself and work on herself and her future. I admire that greatly. The only thing that bothered me was that some of it was a bit cringey to the point that it made me think the characters were in middle or high school instead of college. But I'm excited to see how Christine's writing will improve in the future. ( )